Weary of Delays, New Arrivals Sue for Citizenship

HERNDON, Va. -- Newly minted U.S. citizen Issameldin Mohamed, a native of Egypt, wasn't entirely sure that suing the U.S. government was a good idea.

"In (Egypt), if you sue the government, there's something wrong here," he said, pointing to his head to indicate how foolhardy it would be.

But Mohamed, 45, of Owings Mills, Md., was out of patience, having waited the better part of 10 years to obtain citizenship. Since 2005, he had passed his citizenship test, and waited only for his name to be cleared in a government background check.

Finally, after filing a lawsuit in October at U.S. District Court in Baltimore that named Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other top government officials as defendants, his naturalization application was approved. On Dec. 14, he became a citizen.

"I believed it only when they called my name and gave me my certificate," Mohamed said.

Mohamed and an increasing number of immigrants have decided to sue in federal court to force the government to take action on their citizenship applications.

At the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, roughly 100 lawsuits have been filed in 2007 demanding action on stalled citizenship applications. That represents roughly 8 percent of the entire civil docket at the courthouse, which is among the busiest in the nation.

The lawsuits cite federal law requiring agencies to act on a petition within 120 days after it has been reviewed. Rarely do the lawsuits go before a judge, according to a review of court records. Usually, the plaintiff agrees to drop the case after receiving assurances that it will be resolved quickly and favorably.

Morris Days, an attorney with the Maryland-Virginia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has helped Mohamed and 15 others file similar petitions at federal courthouses in the region in recent months.

Days said six already have received citizenship papers or are about to, and he's optimistic that all the applications will be approved.

The holdup invariably is the name check, Days said. Muslims are particularly vulnerable to delays, he said, because names of innocent immigrants get confused with those on terror watch lists.

Days noted that Mohamed worked for several years as an armed security guard and was permitted to carry a firearm but, as a noncitizen, was barred from voting. The delays cause real harm for people, he said. Certain jobs are off limits to noncitizens, adopting a child can prove difficult and people are often separated from their families.